


watch out cupid

by ishka



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Edgeplay, M/M, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:18:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8047408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishka/pseuds/ishka
Summary: Officer Yamazaki is caught in a seemingly eternal cat and mouse game with alleged outlaw Makoto Tachibana. He can't seem to score any evidence against the guy to put him away with, until he accidentally stumbles across his first break. Unfortunately, he's become a little too interested in his target to stay objective, and Makoto is a bit of an opportunist.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sierra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sierra/gifts).



> blame sierra for this prompt. 
> 
> i'm not promising i will add any more to this lmao. but i MIGHT. it's just a pretty informal and for funsies thing as a contribution to the birth week of the fandom's collective son, sousuke yamazaki. happy birthday, son. have some shifty morals.

“Did you forget to pay the fucking water bill again, Sousuke?!”

He grunts under the armor-piercing round of Rin’s shriek the room over, wedges a pinky into his ear canal to give his now exacerbated tinnitus something to chew on, and pushes to a stand from his spot at the kitchen table once it ebbs. A cursory tug at the sink faucet reveals he did, indeed, forget to pay the water bill again. It’s not his fault, not entirely.

The genetic lottery really fucked him in the ass on this one. He inherited his mother’s lack of short term memory, his father’s inability to commit anything to long term memory, and his paternal grandmother’s knack for saying _there’s no way I’ll forget to do this_ and promptly doing just that. Rin might often argue that last thing isn’t genetic, but there’s no denying the Yamazaki’s can’t remember jack shit, and it’s only by sheer dumb luck no one back down his father’s ancestral line forgot to feed their baby and took the whole family name out of existence due to unimaginable negligence.

“I’ll call ‘em,” he sighs back.

Rin pops around the corner with a burgundy towel tucked around his waist and points his pompadour-pasted toothbrush right at him, arm fully extended. There are little holographic blue chips of breath-freshener in it, which Sousuke finds too glittery for a toiletry. “This? Is not that difficult. Fifty-fifty. Notice how the electric -my bill- always stays on? It’s not magic.”

“Don’t get your nuts in a knot, Rin. I’ve been working like seventy hours a week. It was just a mistake.”

“There’s auto-deduct, dipshit. Ever heard of it?”

He scoffs. “I don’t need every company in Japan with access to my bank account and personal information, jackass. The government puts you on a list, Rin, and one day, when the world falls apart-”

“Je _SUS_ ,” Rin roars. “What the fuck _ever_! Just fix it!”

Sousuke frowns as Rin crosses the kitchen to their fridge and grabs a bottled water to finish his morning ritual with. He slams the door to the bathroom behind him without another word.

Okay, he’s been a bad roommate lately. Abhorrent, actually. He knows. He forgets to pay the bills, forgets to shop, forgets to clean, keeps accidentally passing out shitfaced in Rin’s bed whether Rin’s in it or not. It’s that whole seventy hours of work thing he’s dealing with. Rin is stuck with him as his partner fifty or so of those hours, and it’s only natural that sometimes they get knock-down, drag-out sick of each other like they have been lately due to all this forced proximity. But the other twenty hours…

He glares at their banged up hardwood floor. The other twenty hours he doesn’t spend with Rin. He’d be thankful for those hours alone under any other circumstance, but in truth compared to the reality of it, he’d be better off taking his chances with his disgruntled roommate-coworker-best friend (for life!).

“Fuck,” Sousuke curses, and then it’s off to the coffee shop down the street for an extra-froth-apology-ccino for Rin and his standard four-shot _Locomotive_ for himself since he can’t make anything at home now without water.

It’s a shitty day.

* * *

 

He calls the water company on the way- their number is still in his call history from the last time this happened- and enjoys the end of summer weather while he can. They’re due at the station in about an hour for a mid-shift, and they’ve been demoted to the goddamn neighborhood watch patrol for the week, also courtesy of Sousuke’s space-mindedness. Rin asked him to take care of the filing report for a domestic dispute they’d been called to last week. It should not have surprised Rin that Sousuke forgot to do it, and so that’s Rin’s fault.

At some point in the last few months of this, Sousuke catapulted past the guilt stage for all of his assholery and landed soundly on the other side of the fence in the This is Just Who I Am for Now Land. It’s not staffed by workers in mascot suits, but by all the fucks he hated in high school, and they sell booze here. He doesn’t plan on a permanent residency, but there are many things that have happened to Sousuke for the worse that he never planned for.

“Seven. Two. Six. Six,” Sousuke finishes. “Expires June next year.”

The woman taking his card information for the bill asks him to hold just as Sousuke arrives to the tiny corner cafe. There’s a line at nine in the morning on a Wednesday, which is just some sort of shit. His payment is confirmed and he’s informed the water will be back on within an hour. He texts this to Rin after he hangs up, and Rin responds with a scathing _go fuck yourself_.

Fair enough.

The door to the shop opens behind him as he queues and he doesn’t think much of it.

“Almost that time of year for hot drinks again, isn’t it?”

Sousuke cannot stop the full-body shudder that starts at the shell of his ear and shakes down his skeleton, dislodging all of his apathy and replacing it with an electrified thrum. His knees even go a bit weak which is just _stupid_. But it’s a voice he’s wanted so badly to hear and hasn’t in too long, one he’s heard over and over on interview tapes over the years but rarely in person. He’d know if from anywhere. He’s been looking high and low for it in those twenty extra hours a week he works.

“I love a mocha any time, though.”

Sousuke keeps his gaze forward. Three people ahead of him. At the front, an obvious office intern dressed in a suit too fucking shiny and too fucking blue orders drinks for a goddamn village, each order more complicated than the last and an argument on the horizon over an almond milk cappuccino, extra foam, and no comprehension that almond milk does not foam to begin with.

“Can I get you one? My treat,” he responds, turning his head just enough to speak low over his shoulder. Which is a mistake, because he catches enough of Tachibana’s face out of the corner of his eye to make his own fluster.

Of course he’s smiling, he always is. His eyes are soft and bright, he smells fresh and clean. Wherever he came from must have running water. He’s the man of Sousuke’s dreams, literally and figuratively. He’s every inch as mischievous as he is earnest, somehow, inexplicably kind all things considered, and _exactly_ the adonic form an incubus would take to convince him to hand over his life force through his dick without argument.

And god. He is such an asshole. It’s really too bad he’s a criminal, and just Sousuke’s luck.

“I think you waste enough of the police force’s resources on me as it is… wouldn’t want your salary to get tied up in it, too.”

Sousuke presses his mouth into a thin line. The intern hands a wad of cash over and stands off to the side to wait for his order from a barista tucked away behind the espresso machine. A Very Important Businesswoman steps to the cashier and orders some sugar-free soy monstrosity that gives Sousuke heartburn at the thought of it.

Miraculously, he manages to stay totally calm. Not just because of this line, or his stressful morning, but because Tachibana drops a hand into Sousuke’s rear pocket without warning. A full hand; a palm turned and flat against his ass, fingers curled around the curve. Which is a totally unnecessary amount of contact for the size of the object between him and the fabric.

The brush of Tachibana’s lips at his ear again isn’t feather light as it was a moment ago. It’s threatening, and Sousuke’s chill is also of a different brand. He clenches his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. “Next time you try and bug my home,” he rasps nearly inaudibly, “be a bit smarter about your mic placement. You’re getting sloppy.”

There’s only one person now between Sousuke and his godforsaken coffee order. Tachibana gives his ass a long squeeze that makes him swallow the rapidly developing desert in his throat, and withdraws back to himself in line just as the door chimes again and another patron disrupts their privacy. Sousuke thinks the threat is done, his guard drops just enough.

He hisses a shaky curse and flinches hard when Tachibana sticks a finger-gun to the small of his back. “ _Bang_ ,” he whispers.

“... You got me.”

“Be more careful, Sousuke.”

The last person steps aside for their drink, and Sousuke takes one long and wide stride towards the register to order to get the fuck away from him. The cashier- Nagisa- is a hyper college kid who always seems to be working here since he showed up two months ago and is never in school so far as Sousuke can tell. He’s usually quick to strike up a conversation Sousuke does _not_ want to be having before caffeine. But today he looks through his disheveled blond hair at him with nothing but clipped annoyance and a deep pout, likely due to Almond Milk Intern. Small blessings.

Sousuke orders his drinks and tacks on an iced mocha.

* * *

 

Rin ducks and Sousuke’s right hook sails across the newly empty space. He grunts when Rin pushes off the balls of his feet from his crouch and barrels into his middle, sending Sousuke flat onto his back. He smacks the mat hard and is winded long enough for Rin to position over him with a straddle on his chest and get a solid set of jabs in.

The jabs are unfairly aimed directly for his nose, which is against the fucking sparring rules, and involuntary tears sting his eyes when he doesn’t turn away in time and Rin’s last hit smacks into the side of sensitive cartilage. While he deserves it, he also doesn’t need a broken face, and throws his weight to roll and toss Rin off of him.

Rin elects to hop back to his feet and Sousuke follows him, already bringing his arms up to block the next assault. He’s actually aiming exclusively for Sousuke’s head, he realizes, and when his fists don’t break through Sousuke’s forearms, he leans back for a roundhouse kick that connects too hard with Sousuke’s wrist.

“Fuck, Rin! Ow!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I _forgot_ ,” Rin mocks, and brings his left foot up for a kick on the other side. That one has the flat of Rin’s foot smacking the shit out of Sousuke’s upper arm hard enough to bruise.

“All right! Fuck, dude!”

Rin lowers his fists halfways, chest heaving and skin slicked with sweat. Sousuke slumps with exhaustion. “That always makes me feel a bit better.”

“Glad I could help,” Sousuke wheezes.

“Yet I’m still pissed off at you.”

Sousuke rolls his eyes and raises his arms again defensively. “Yeah, yeah. Lay it on me.”

The response to that comes in the form of another assault. Usually Sousuke’s adept at incapacitating Rin eventually once his friend burns himself out and doesn’t quit while he’s ahead, but tonight proves differently, if only because Rin seems to have come equipped with a bottomless well of raw anger for Sousuke and a dream of turning his face inside out.

Sousuke’s swept onto his back more times than he should ever allow for in one evening and ends up with a split lip that’s bloodier than it is painful. He can’t bring himself to hit Rin back with a whole lot of gusto. Some sparring sessions need to take place in certain ways for the sake of their relationship, and this is one of those nights Rin needs to pummel Sousuke into a fine powder for lack of another argument on deaf ears to get him to behave like a goddamn adult.

It ends in a headlock (and in Sousuke’s near-unconsciousness). Rin lets off his back and un-flexes his arms from his throat only after Sousuke pounding his fist for mercy into the mat below isn’t enough to get Rin off of his murderous rampage.

Sousuke coughs and gasps on his knees, Rin flops onto his back nearby with arms out flat. There’s an ache in every muscle, and this entire fight is going to result in about ten more bruises than usual for him, but Rin looks content. This is the preferable alternative to being snuffed out in his sleep, which he was beginning to develop a fear of for how pissy Rin’s been with him lately.

“Tachibana,” Rin breathes, setting Sousuke’s nerves on edge.

“What about him?”

“You’re still obsessed and you should cut it out. I’m sick of you not being here.”

Sousuke sighs and rolls over to match Rin’s pose. “I’m not obsessed.”

“If you think I’m dumb enough to not know that’s where you’re spending all your extra time, you really did deserve a beat down,” Rin snaps.

He mulls over telling Rin what happened at the coffee stand that morning. What Tachibana said and did really couldn’t have been anything other than a threat, and he can’t just let that go. But then he’d end up thinking about the semi he’d sported due to the encounter the entire walk home, and he’d rather forget about that detail as soon as he’s able to.

The lines are so much less defined now than they were when he tripped into this mess a year ago. Tachibana started it. All that flirting. As a means to disarm and distract Sousuke from his task, he’s not stupid. But fuck him sideways if he hasn’t enjoyed it, doesn’t look forward to the next _never as random as it seems_ encounter, and dare he say Tachibana’s smiles when they meet are genuine. His touches linger on Sousuke’s heated skin. His words are soft despite knowing Sousuke’s looking for a way to destroy him while he enjoys those thorough gropings. He doesn’t know how to feel about any of this, so he overcompensates by feeling too much all at once, then drowns all of that out at the bar for a little bit of fucking peace and quiet in his own head.

Rin would gut him if he knew just how much Sousuke enjoyed that hand on his ass, then would certainly find a way to get him pulled off the case for his own good, which Sousuke can’t argue wouldn’t be for the best these days.

Makoto Tachibana is notorious, and Sousuke was given a task regardless of shallow mutual attraction: find something to bring him in on.

It’s a long-term assignment.

“The only reason you were put on the case was so you’d stop bugging the Segeant for something more to do, you know. Like a dog chasing a laser pointer. Keeps you distracted, and you’ll never fucking catch it.”

Sousuke resents that. Forgetful sure, unable to check his sexual tension at the door maybe, but he’s a trained police officer. Tenacity is important, a _skill-_ not a flaw. He’s not deterred by the others who have tried before him to slap a pair of handcuffs on one of Japan’s leading, most elusive criminals. In fact it fuels him.

“If anything I’m making him cocky. He’s going to slip up, Rin.”

Velcro rips through the air as Rin removes his padded gloves and tosses them to the side. “You know when he first showed up on police radar, Sou? Twelve years ago. No one has ever arrested him in twelve years. We were still rookies in the academy when he- _allegedly-_ spearheaded his first major drug deal in his teens. Now?” Rin chuckles. “He’s even above _drugs_. We can’t find him on the streets at all.”

“I have him on recording speaking to _Nanase_ , the most openly-open criminal in the history of criminals.”

“Yeah, we have a ton of recordings. Interviews. Street. Phone. Never, Sou, and I mean _never_ , has he incriminated himself in any way. No one we’ve caught has ever ratted him out. What makes you think you’ll crack it? Speaking to criminals isn’t a crime. I’ve spoken to Nanase. You gonna arrest me?”

“You know I’m speaking with context, right? If I could get you to listen to the recording again maybe you could help me find something coded in it.”

Rin laughs loud and sudden, startling others in the gym. “Every single thing that man says is in code, idiot. That’s the _problem_.”

That’s true. Everything. _Mocha_ is probably code for _how do you take your bullet caliber_. In that case, nothing smaller than a .45 if it’s a bullet for his head to ensure lights out. Living with brain damage isn’t ideal and he’s read horror stories. .22 caliber for anything limb or torso. That way he has a better chance making a full recovery. By buying Tachibana a mocha, he likely unknowingly answered _stick a sawed-off against my lips and destroy the dental evidence_.

He has to think about these things in his line of work. However, Rin doesn’t need to know fantasy-Sousuke _wants_ fantasy-Tachibana to press that fantasy-gun to his head and fantasy-fuck him with it held there. He’s certainly thought of all of the above and more. Being in the same room with him, that is. Sousuke knowing he’s been outfoxed. Tachibana’s soft green eyes would go sharp like Sousuke figures they must have to for him to pull off the jobs he does.

Heavy metal scrapes across a wooden tabletop; the drag is thick and loud. He’s bound, probably. To a chair. Stripped of his gear, but not a scratch on him. Tachibana doesn’t fight. He presses the barrel of a common G17 to Sousuke’s forehead, never having been a man for a fancy, uniquely identifying gun. The click of the safety echoing in the silent room is enough to make Sousuke break out into a sweat. His blood drains down, down, down.

When exactly did that line start to blur?

“-so okay, anyway, you’re clearly not listening to me as usual. I’m going home. To take a shower. Under running water. Since I could not this morning.” Rin gets to his feet and stoops for his gloves, takes off his boxing helmet, and rolls his neck out.

“All right. Don’t wait up,” Sousuke responds customarily, as Rin doesn’t wait up for his ass anymore and reassures him of that fact with an incredulous _HA_ as he walks towards the lockers to get his things.

Sousuke waits for him to leave before heading to the gym shower to clean himself up thoroughly of grime and sweat and blood. He’s got an all-nighter ahead of him.

* * *

 

The other coffee bar near the station is open until eleven, and its four-shot apocalypse bringer is called a _Four Horsemen._ It doesn’t taste as smooth as a _Locomotive_ , but the acridity of the espresso puts a late-night tang on his tongue that helps keep him awake a little better than the _Locomotive_ can.

He pairs it with a vending machine-provided package of cheese crackers.

Tonight he wants to listen to Tachibana’s recording again and see what all he might glean after their meeting this morning. He’s not about to say Tachibana communicates in coffee-code, but it also wouldn’t be the worst idea he ever came up with either.

At his overrun desk and with the door to his utility closet office shut, Sousuke pops in his earbuds connected to his phone and hits play on the recording he’s listened to thirty times by now. It’s the newest one he’s been able to get before Tachibana found the mic Sousuke managed to fasten to the window of his living room on a day it had been left partially open. Not well enough, though.

He’s clipped it to only contain the conversations, of which there aren’t many. He assumes Tachibana lives alone and does not talk to himself when he’s there, or he’s never home. Either explanation is reasonable from what Sousuke knows. He worries the small wireless mic Tachibana returned to him between his fingertips as he hits play.

_“I wasn’t expecting you today, Haru. My house is a mess!”_

_“Got back a day earlier. I brought you a souvenir, too.”_

_“Oh! This is just cute. A kangaroo?”_

_“Wallaby.”_

Sousuke _knows_ that means something. All of this means something. But that in particular hangs him up time after time. If only he could see what exchanged hands.

_“Well, thank you. This is very thoughtful.”_

Somebody then sets what sounds like a phone down on a table, if Sousuke had to venture a guess.

 _“How’s the office?”_ Nanase asks.

_“Much of the same. The intern started while you were gone. He’s a handful.”_

_“It’s for your own good. He’s smart and can help lessen your work. Has Yamazaki been by to see you?”_

_“Haru.”_

Sousuke sits up a bit straighter, as if that warning was said right next to him. It gives him goosebumps every time. How Nanase doesn’t heed that warning lends interesting words unsaid to a dynamic Sousuke doesn’t get yet.

_“If he’s bothering you-”_

_“He isn’t. He’s doing his job. Like everyone does.”_

_“He is-”_

_“Sousuke is not your concern.”_

A shiver.

Pause. Rewind.

_“Sousuke is not yo-”_

Pause. Rewind.

_“Sousuke is-”_

Pause. Rewind.

_“Sousuke-”_

Pause. Rewind.

_“Sousuke-”_

_“Sousuke-”_

_“Sousuke-”_

He draws a shaky breath. The inhale doesn’t kill the fire in his gut, only fans it and makes it worse. The way Tachibana _says_ it: slow, rich and thick along the _ou_ , a velvet braid bridging to the consonant. His S’s are a soft, low laze. Sousuke’s name on his tongue is always how it should be said, as if he’s the first person who’s ever said it correctly.

 _“Sousuke,”_ Tachibana mumbles, but manages to say it just as flawlessly. He uses a thumb to pull down Sousuke’s bottom lip, and kisses his top slowly. Sousuke doesn’t dare kiss him back. He can’t tangle his hands in Tachibana’s hair like he wants to. Can’t guide his hands over that thick chest. He can hardly move at all.

Tachibana grabs his chin and strokes his jawline in a movement Sousuke wouldn’t be stupid enough to call _tender_ , but the thought crosses his mind. Sousuke takes Tachibana’s added tongue as permission to kiss him back this time, and he feels not unlike a tablet dissolving in hot water to get to taste him. It’s a lot like mocha.

Tachibana gives nothing away, but he does finally settle onto Sousuke’s lap. God, he’s hard. Sousuke gasps and lifts his hips to feel more of that, seemingly the only part of him not tied down. Tachibana yanks his chin up and frowns down at him.

 _“Sousuke,”_ he chides, the _ou_ much lower, the _ke_ clipped and impatient. He drops his hand from Sousuke’s chin and reaches between them, cupping Sousuke through his uniform and pulling a helpless moan out of him at contact. _“Be good.”_

When he massages his crotch and bites his lip where Rin split it, Sousuke sobs because fuck him that hurts, and feels so incredible-

“Hey, Sousuke! Heeeelloooo?”

One hand rips his earbuds out, the other retracts from his fucking dick- and holy _shit_ when the fuck did his pants fall undone. He hastily zips and re-fastens, then the belt, and his uniform shirt isn’t tucked in quite right but it’s good enough. He clears his throat and rolls his chair back inwards to cover his lap. “Yeah? Come in.”

His office door cracks open tentatively and Kisumi pops his head in half-way. He can clearly tell something was up in here; hopefully he doesn’t immediately assume it was Sousuke’s cock.

“Just checking on you. It’s nearly midnight, you know, and Rin texted me to tell you to go home if I found you in here sleeping.” His eyes flicker to the empty spot in the center of Sousuke’s desk. “Which I’m assuming you were, since you’re not working on anything.”

Sousuke sighs. It’s better than the truth of it. “Must’ve dozed... Hey you got a smoke?”

Kisumi smiles apologetically. “Quit, finally.”

“Goddammit. You were my only enabler left since Rin dropped it.”

“Good,” he mouths, then checks his phone. “So I’m off shift in thirty. Wanna grab a drink?”

He could use one. Today’s been worse than usual, no thanks to his encounter with Tachibana that morning. It has set all levels to max. All sorts of levels. Contrary to the fucked up fantasies that find him during two hour debriefing meetings and while he spends all night staking out where Tachibana might be on any given day, he does not often jack off at his desk to the idea of Tachibana saying his name. This is a new development.

Kisumi’s being a champ and offering him a lay and a warm bed for the night with his innocent invitation, which is sweet of him. He could use that too. Something tells him though if he asks Kisumi to rough him up before they cutesy-cuddle it out, he’ll be reported and slapped with some sort of 5150, which has a high probability of pulling him off the case. Probably the entire force. At the very least he loses his part-time fuckbuddy, which is itself too high a risk. Most people find Sousuke laughably unfuckable as it is, what with all of his inability to care for himself and recently others schtick. Every few months, Kisumi looks past that.

But back to the inquiry at hand, he should probably get his fucking shit together first before he scars someone else for life.

“Actually, maybe I’ll just go home for once.”

“Probably a good answer,” Kisumi laughs. “Rin worries.”

“Rin genuinely tried to break my neck today.”

“Well, he worries with a lot of passion, but he still does.”

Suddenly eight shots of espresso in twenty-four hours sink into a nearly empty stomach and he feels like a hollow glass ball with a stress fracture being bombarded with soundwaves. Tonight would be a good one to take off, because his focus is all shot to shit. Rin might still be up, and he can pick up a nice bottle of bourbon for them to have a glass out of. That usually seals the deal for his multi-part apologies.

“Raincheck on the drink, then.”

Kisumi nods and smiles. “I’m only a text away.”

Sousuke eyes his phone one more time after Kisumi leaves and wonders what rock bottom looks like.

* * *

 

Someone might say rock bottom looks like a twenty-four hour liquor store at one in the morning with its harsh fluorescent lighting glaring off of that ubiquitous bespeckled white flooring. They’re probably right.

He checks out with his second peace offering of the day and deliberates over two cigars. He shouldn’t tempt Rin though, who had a hell of a time kicking his habit. It would undermine his earnest liquid apology. It’s no fun to smoke one alone, so he doesn’t buy it for himself.

The late bus dropped him off a few blocks away from home, and at this rate Rin won’t be awake anymore once he gets there. It pangs a buoyant loneliness in him he’s usually able to tamp down before it surfaces, but to no such luck tonight. There’s always tomorrow for getting it right.

For all of the reasons he has to hate himself, Sousuke believes he is a man of honest character judgement, and that he possesses an observant eye. As he rounds the corner for the the last stretch of his walk, it means he takes interest in the shadow anyone else might’ve missed turning down an alleyway a bit ahead of him, next to the corner café staffed by a college student who never seems to actually be in school. No one has any business being in this area, given as all the shops and restaurants are closed by now.

He follows, plastic bag with bourbon in one hand, duffel bag with his uniform haphazardly crushed inside on his shoulder, firearm and mace back at the station in his locker. When he’s a civilian again, he doesn’t like it on his person. Plus he has a knack for blowing off steam at the bar, and doesn’t need to deal with any of it falling into the wrong hands when his senses are less than sharp. It makes it dangerous to try and stop a robbery like he’s about to do, but he has the jump on the shadow for now.

Sousuke finds the alley empty, but light spills out below the back-access door to the café. He digs around for his badge to flash the intruder with, a zip tie for restraints as an afterthought, and shoves both in his pocket. Just in case.

Inside he doesn’t see anyone. It’s an empty back room. Boxed inventory lines the shelves and everything’s long since been cleaned up and put away for the day. To his left at the end of the shelves, a small office. Smaller than his back at the station by the looks of it, and the door is closed. To his right, the opening to the front where the register is. Criminals are usually stupid enough to assume stores keep all their cash in hand in the register and not in a safe in the office after hours, so Sousuke assumes that’s where the intruder went too.

And hey, he knows what they say about assuming.

“Don’t turn around.”

It’s spoken so close to his ear it wrenches his heart with subzero terror and his vision spots black. His gasp is soundless and when he tries to whirl around and face it, hands steady his hips and shove him back. It’s too dark to catch anything on his periphery; he can only see where the street lamps outside streak through the front windows.

“I believe you’re lost.” It’s a threatening statement, but it’s arguably gently delivered. The voice a higher pitch than his own even when dropped to this low murmur to the point that it tickles his skin. Sousuke would know it from anywhere by this point.

“I think I’m right where I should be for once,” Sousuke answers quietly. The hands on his hips squeeze and the body behind him goes taut as Sousuke reveals himself. Tachibana’s breath catches and the air around them pulls tight with tension. None of that playfulness from this morning is behind him now. In the still night, Sousuke feels Tachibana’s rapid pulse slam through the palms still tight on his hips.

He’s afraid.

Because there are only two options for the man at his back, and neither let him get away unscathed. Either Tachibana will say he owns this establishment, which makes his thoroughly combed-through tax documents a fiery lie, or he’s breaking and entering. Either charge would unravel his neatly constructed front and ruin him. Ruin whatever sort of money laundering operation this cafe is. On the flip side, Sousuke is all alone with his discovery. Sousuke is not armed. Sousuke is a nobody in a thin white undershirt and black tear-away track pants over his plainest, most uncool Adidas Superstars with nothing but a badge and zip tie to defend himself with.

And neither can trust the other to walk away and pretend it didn’t happen.

“What do we do about this?” he asks next. As if he isn’t weaponless and vulnerable, as if he’s an equal participant in this decision. He hopes Tachibana can’t feel the heat rising on his skin with each passing moment, or the way his lungs thicken with each inhale. “You can’t kill a cop.”

“I don’t kill,” he answers quickly and razor sharp, fingers flexing harder. “I don’t.”

“That’s what Nanase is for, right?”

There’s a split second of uncertainty where Sousuke doesn’t know if he’s signed off on his execution or Tachibana is biting back a laugh where he’ll deny, deny, deny.

“... We’re alone,” he says carefully instead. His grip loosens as Sousuke parses that seemingly unrelated statement. It sounds like a realization. It trends light and airy, Sousuke can literally feel the stress physically draining from the guy. He doesn’t dare turn around still even though it seems he could now.

“Are we usually not alone?” Sousuke tries.

“No.” Then, quieter, “Never.”

And does he mean the public situations they always make sure to find themselves in or something else? Does he mean Nanase is always nearby who he asks for protection or is it someone worse that he doesn’t want there? Sousuke supposes it doesn’t matter in the moment. Not when Tachibana kisses the nape of his neck like he does, not when the hands on his hips push around the curve for his stomach.

His breathing quickens but he doesn’t shake him off. “I know what you’re doing. This doesn’t change or distract me from how fucked you are.”

Tachibana’s hands on his stomach trend towards his waistband. Sousuke can’t decide if he wants to buck his hips forwards to encourage him downwards or buck backwards to feel the body along his back, but Tachibana grants him both and presses to him more firmly, one hand glides halfway past the boxer band and his fingertips pull small, light, teasing strokes at the base of his cock.

The plastic bag in his hand drops to the ground with a thud, he un-tenses his shoulders to let the duffel bag crash along with it on the other side, and his hands catch his quickly oppressive weight at the edge of the counter.

“This isn’t how you _want_ me, Sousuke.”

“Tachibana,” he moans.

“Makoto,” he corrects, snaking his fingers around Sousuke for a deliberate grasp. “I’m just Makoto. There’s no glory in catching Makoto.”

He’s fucking right.

How Sousuke wants him is in metal cuffs, not a zip tie. It’s during the the day, not the dead of night. He’s in his uniform and not what he planned on passing out in at three in the morning. The aviators currently stored on the dash of their squad car shield his eyes instead and catch the sun for a Hollywood glint as he finally gets to say the words: _you’re under arrest._ Rin stands proudly with him and helps him guide Tachibana to the backseat with a mountain of evidence on their side to put him away. They take him off the streets in view of all of his lurkers in the shadows and kill a drug highway so old and strong and _necessary_ , the entire black market infrastructure rattles with the aftershock.

How Sousuke wants him is slamming into him hard and fast and coldhearted, which _Makoto_ is not. This man is too soft for his fantasy-Tachibana. Even the pad of his thumb lining the ridge of Sousuke’s hardening cock is too careful. His long fingers wrap around the shaft firmly, but not punishingly. When he could be rough and get away with it, he isn’t, and Sousuke learns quickly his fantasy is just that. Not real.

So why does a desperate, dry hand job tear these deep moans from him, why does he thrust his hips for more until a rhythm develops and carries him up towards an impossibly high ledge? Why is this vanilla _bullshit_ so good when it isn’t what he wants at all?

Makoto drags his lips down the side of Sousuke’s neck, careful- he’s so fucking careful- not to mark or suck for too long. Sousuke feels him hard at his ass, his one free hand retreating back to Sousuke’s hip and pulling him closer for more. The stray thought of that cock shoved so deep inside him that he loses his name until Makoto moans it back to him perfectly makes him want to throw his uniform onto a bonfire and say fuck it, nothing in this life could ever satisfy him like that could.

“Don’t end this yet,” Makoto whispers. “Not just for me.”

Sousuke’s response is a damp exhale of _Makoto,_ too gone in the movement to think anything other than no, this shouldn’t end. Ever. His dick throbs with what he had to deny himself earlier back at the office. Makoto’s strokes begin to glide easier and slicker as he thumbs the head and coaxes precum from the tip. Practiced. He knows what he’s doing. Sousuke’s fantasies take new turns down new roads towards all the other things Makoto could do. All they could share. They haven’t even kissed yet and Sousuke can already feel his lips and tongue everywhere else, wet and unbearably hot.

“ _This,_ right? This is good. We can have this, don’t tell me you don’t think about it.”

“ _Fuck-uhn_ , and fuck you, you a-asshole,” he whines.

“Let us walk away tonight and you’ll get to,” Makoto counters. “I promise.”

“Manipu- _oh, shit_. Manipulative- _fuck, youfuckingprick-”_ He cries out, cut off by his own pleasure, too close to argue and under so much pressure he has a difficult time holding himself up anymore. His hands slip forward on the counter when Makoto works his cock faster. He turns his wrist so his fingertips play along the softer, sensitive underside and his hips slam Sousuke’s ass in perfect sync; he couldn’t come close to beating himself off as good as this is. And hell, not for a lack of trying.

“If you didn’t love it you wouldn’t let me jack you off in your fucking _track pants_ , _Sousuke_.”

There’s no denying legally acquired evidence; he learned that in the academy.

His arms give under the weight of that primal growl of his name, the raw vulgarity bursting through the mild-mannered cracks just a taste of what he so desperately needs. He catches his debauched face on the crook of one elbow, his other arm reaches blindly behind to twist at Makoto’s shirt and force him and his still-hard cock closer just to feel him there, just to pretend, as he comes over Makoto’s hand and across the inside of his boxers. He shouts, bites his arm, whimpers through his teeth as wave after wave numbs his back and legs and puts a white hot flame to the end of each nerve he has.

He gasps for air when he lets up off his arm, and locks his shaky knees straight before they can betray him and buckle him to the floor. They’re still and silent until Sousuke’s able to draw one long breath again, and his sweat begins to cool. Strangely the shame he expected if he ever let something like this happen doesn’t settle in. Maybe because he always knew he’d let it without question.

Makoto gently releases him and he winces anyway, sore from base to tip from the friction that should have killed his hard-on if anything, in any other situation and with any other person. He slowly stands up and adjusts himself, a grimace carved deep as the sticky feel he is stuck with settles in and cools.

And finally he faces him, after two nearly-faceless encounters in twenty-four hours, as there’s nothing on his face he can hide now. Makoto’s eyes are lidded with arousal and focused interest, he’s just sweaty enough to piece out his shaggy hair, his gaze locks with Sousuke’s and just for a split second, Sousuke isn’t entirely convinced this is just a distraction. Maybe Makoto isn’t _just_ trying to weasel his way out of prison. A split second and Sousuke thinks maybe Makoto wanted to do that to him, maybe he genuinely wants to do more, and escaping authority isn’t actually his priority.

But inherently, by nature of their roles, it just can’t be true, and Sousuke knows better than to think the man he pursues daily sees him as anything other than a pest he can’t seem to get rid of. No matter what Sousuke thinks he’s sees. Or wants to see.

Though that fact of life rings hollow to him if however briefly when Makoto takes a hungry dive for his lips and kisses him hard. Sousuke hooks his fingers behind Makoto’s ears and through his day-tangled hair and brings him closer like he wants to be kissing him, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want to feel warmth and need from someone who’s supposed to be as good as inhuman and as worse as unforgivably evil; on his tongue delving deep along Sousuke’s, on his lips as they eagerly learn the shape of Sousuke’s mouth, on his breathy whimpers that can only mean Makoto isn’t faking it.

Sousuke does not want to be wrong about Makoto, not when the only way he can possibly succeed this increasingly impossible task is to be right.

“Let me go,” Makoto tries one last time, his lips so close they move Sousuke’s along with his words. His eyes aren’t hazy with arousal, Sousuke had it wrong. They’re dull and sorrowful at such a close range; he fully knows he’s at Sousuke’s mercy and it isn’t a mercy he deserves. The thought is bitter. This isn’t how Sousuke wants him, dammit. Makoto knows it. He’s falling for it.

No. He fell for it. A while ago.

Somehow nothing’s changed. The only thing Sousuke looked forward to before tonight was the next time he’d hear Makoto rumbling ghostly threats next to ears and over tinny recordings that stand his hairs on end. It’s still the only thing he’s looking forward to now. Nothing’s changed, nothing needs to change, Sousuke can chase him for just a taste as long as Makoto’s free. He can’t if Makoto goes away. He returns to fifty hours a week with nothing to pursue and only a memory of the night he ruined the only thing driving him forward.

He pulls Makoto to him again for one more sloppy, world-tipping kiss and drops his hands down his long neck as Makoto recovers from it before languidly skimming to his chest. Makoto looks down to follow his path and doesn’t react to watch Sousuke form a firearm with one hand aimed for his heart, support the hammer of his fist with the other, and angle his head for a fake down-sight shot.

Makoto’s breathing spikes through his nose and he stays ram-rod still, despite the theatrics, despite the non-danger, Sousuke feels the tremor just along the surface of Makoto’s skin as if he’s fighting with himself to refrain from shoving Sousuke away in fear.

“ _Bang_ ,” he says quietly, and drops his hands away to bend for his things. Makoto still doesn’t do so much as twitch as Sousuke walks past him and back towards the way he came in. While he’s still within earshot, he speaks over his shoulder.

“Be more careful, Makoto.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops here's more. heed the additional tag pls and decide if this stays one chapter for you. thanks
> 
> again not promising more after this, but here's 9k for now. we're all just here for the porn anyway, right?

For he’s a jolly good fellow, who Kisumi straight up denied. On Sousuke’s birthday, too. Fucker.

“I’m in a relationship,” Kisumi sighs wistfully to him and Rin at the round table of Sousuke’s favorite dive bar. “It’s really great.”

“Congrats, man,” Sousuke cheers with a _clink_ of his pint glass to his coworker’s. He is happy for him, but it’s one hell of a letdown and his thorough anticipatory shower with a special Kisumi-wrangling cologne on top was now for jackfuckall. Rin _knew_ , too, and now all of his background snickering as Sousuke got ready earlier makes more sense. He’d laugh at himself too for putting real-date-level effort into a shameless one-hour hookup if only the fallout didn’t make his dick so sad.

Rin slings an arm across Kisumi’s shoulders and gives a friendly shake. His grin stretches his face and his laugh is obnoxious and his cheeks are red enough to make him resemble a distant cousin of the common tomato which is also strangely annoying, but at least he’s having a nice time.

He’s not upset with Rin. They’ve actually been on the up and up over the last few weeks. He’s agitated with other things. It’s his birthday. A birthday he’s not getting any ass for now. Selfish, but really, it’s the one day a year selfishness should be allowed.

Kisumi bends below the table and sits up with a brown bag. “I got you something, Sou. It’s totally a pity gift. A solitary scotch for your solitary evening.”

Sousuke drinks long from his glass and glares at Kisumi over the top of it. “Call me in two weeks once you get sick of how they, I don’t know, dare to buy something off-brand. Or listen to the TV at an odd-number volume level,” he counters. “That was the reason you dumped the last one, right?”

“Look,” Kisumi bristles. “It was obnoxious. Twenty-nine?! Just bump it up to thirty. Seriously did it just to piss me off once I brought it up, too. Fuck that, I’ll take my royal, ascended ass elsewhere.”

Rin sagely nods along with that stupid line of reasoning and Sousuke bottoms out his glass. He almost doesn’t disagree, which means he isn’t sober. “Anyway. Fuck you, and thanks.”

“There’s one more gift,” Rin sighs as he pings a nervous beat to the side of his empty glass. He flushes redder than he already is as if he’s embarrassed, and Sousuke considers if not for the first time then certainly for the most vividly imagined so far, what a blowjob from Rin would feel like. Fantastic probably, with that variable of blood-drawing danger. “Yesterday I asked the Sarge to put me on the Tachibana case with you. Help you out. Re-examine the evidence, divide and conquer the stakeouts, follow more than one lead at a time, yadda yadda. Y’know. The shit you need help with that I have not helped you with ever.”

A month ago he might’ve been touched, definitely choked up. Tonight his beaten down, scarred, morally blackened soul shrieks in horror and twisted agony under Rin’s ten-ton olive branch. Fuck fuck fuck. How does he deal with this without drawing suspicion? How does he navigate his crooked-cop proclivities with Rin over his shoulder scrutinizing the way his pupils blow wide at the sound of Tachibana’s voice? Better yet, why is he asking himself how he’s going to get away with it going forward instead of asking himself how soon he can get to Tachibana to shut this shit down?

“Don’t look too fuckin’ thankful there, asshole.”

Sousuke clears his throat and grabs the waitress for another round before daring to turn his eyes back on his friend. “I- you sure? You’re always telling me it’s a dead end.”

Rin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because it is. But you’re my friend, unfortunately, and Kissy lobbed the wild accusation that I am not being supportive of you.”

 _“Bullshit,”_ Kisumi growls. “Don’t threaten my masculinity like that. I said you could stand to not be such a frigid prick when Sou’s just tryin’ to make the world a better place.”

He chokes on his spit and his phone vibrates in his pocket. As if a holy deity is listening in and broke protocol to text him _you are a cosmic piece of shit._

Rin shrugs. “Same thing. So I will devote all of my spare time your cause, all right? Until no stone goes unturned. Sarge was happy someone else finally wanted to take it on with you. We work with a bunch of lazy shits, you know that?”

“Excuse my chair-cushioned, non-fieldwork unworthiness to ask,” Kisumi drawls, “but if Tachibana is such a big deal why is it a volunteer case?”

“Twelve years,” Rin answers with a loud tap to the tabletop. “‘Lots more important shit has popped up since his name covered the debriefing board for the first time. He keeps a sort of equilibrium to the black market no one wants to admit to… no one gets too strong, things run more like a business instead of a turf war. Sou’s just got a titanium-grade hard-on for the guy.”

Kisumi pouts. “No wonder he never seems that into it with me.”

“I’m right here,” Sousuke grunts, and also simultaneously thinks: fuck, he noticed.

The waitress returns with their new pints and collects the old ones. She could not possibly serve them fast enough to Sousuke at this point. He clears half of it in one long swig.

Rin huffs at the sight and matches Sousuke. Always an unspoken race with him, even if Sousuke’s downing opaque porters and Rin’s on lagers. Rin’s the one who ends up soaked anyway. Kisumi only sips. “Either way, we bag and tag the fucker or we literally run out of leads and move onto something else. Win-win for me if I can help turn over this chapter over once and for all.”

“Because he _misses_ you, Sou-ba-by,” Kisumi coos. Sousuke frowns when Rin grumbles irritably and drinks again, but doesn’t deny it. Some thread of guilty consciousness he’s kept beaten down to a bloody pulp since his night in the café twitches to life and he imagines himself dragging a metal baseball bat across uneven pavement to finish the job.

“You get too into this special case shit,” Rin mutters. “It’s not good for you. You don’t do it right, you don’t take care of yourself. Then you don’t fuckin’ listen to anyone who tries to tell you that.”

His phone vibrates again. He imagines another god-text instead of who he knows it is deep down: _stand by, we’re designing a new level of hell for you._

But he doesn’t need this babying at his age, and holds his glass up in sarcastic cheers. “Thanks for all this positivity, dicks. I love feeling like shit on my birthday.”

Rin and Kisumi nod along and drink their beers with him. They’ve all been friends for too long to make mountains out of this shit anymore. Every week somebody pisses someone off, every week they’re flinging apology-booze around. If that doesn’t work they take it to the gym. Comes with the territory of their professions and non-overlapping personalities. Birthdays are no sanctuary.

“Not like you’re gettin’ any now,” Rin consoles. “Might as well take the criticism all the way home.”

“Careful. Could always text your sister, Rin.”

He rolls his eyes. “See if I care. Then at least I’d know you weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere for one night in my life.”

Sousuke considers it for the first time in over a year. But Gou trains the K-9 unit and Sousuke’s so fucking allergic to anything more than one strand of dog hair, much less whatever amount Gou drags home on her person. Calling her is a battle against the drowsing effects of a fistfull of benadryl he usually loses before the night is done. Broke his heart when she went that route. They had great weekends together. Might’ve even bummed Rin out because he’s right; at least Rin knew what Sousuke was up to when he was under the _thorough_ care of his fox for a sister.

When his phone vibrates a third time, he finally excuses himself for a leak. “Order another round while I’m gone. One of you buy as apology for being assholes.”

He throws open the door to the bathroom and takes a stall for privacy. Deep breaths.

 _what are you doing?_ the first text asks.

_we should talk._  
_happy birthday btw._

There’s no mystery in Makoto having his number or knowing his birthday. Guy seems to know where Sousuke is and how to get a hold of him whenever he wants to.

 _busy,_ he sends back, an odd sort of adrenaline blooming in his chest to shut down the other’s urgency.

_i’d like to see you._

Sousuke licks his lips. Chapped and dry. Rin and Kisumi just outside weigh heavily on him. That thread of consciousness that just won’t go down whispers to him. Outside he’s got two guys concerned for his well being way too honed in on what he’s up to now. To the point Sousuke felt he needed to check his texts in a bathroom stall knowing full well on some level who it was going to be.

 _we’re done_ , he responds. Because Rin has forced himself into the picture. Visions of unconfirmed Haruka Nan-assassin flash through his head. Sousuke is fully okay to be an idiot on his own, but risking Rin is a step too far even for him. Makoto might not kill cops and Sousuke might conveniently forget about the café but no one said shit about anyone else’s moral code.

_i’ll be at home tonight if you change your mind._  
_we’re alone._

“Fuck,” he mouths over the death throes of his apparently weak, fragile will.

Alone. In a private home.

Once Makoto finds out Rin’s on the case, shit’s going to get tumultuous anyway. Then Makoto will understand why Sousuke needs it to be done. Why they need to go back to the cat-and-mouse chase and no more. They’re adults, they’re mature. Makoto’s the one who said everyone has a job to do.

Sousuke never did get to fuck him, and it is his birthday. Call it a bucket list item. He does not owe Tachibana the privilege of information. Not after letting him go free. If Tachibana is stupid enough to play with fire like this, Sousuke can bring the lighter.

A drug dealer at his most basic foundation, Sousuke reasons. Responsible for more ruined lives than Sousuke ever could be. He deserves whatever’s coming to him.

He takes his leak and returns to his friends to slam his last beer fast enough to drown out everything else but that, and they’re just too sickeningly fucking trusting to question his departure after that.

* * *

 

The Tachibana who Sousuke fantasizes about greets him with unbridled fury in his eyes, and Sousuke quickly re-evaluates his stance on who’s playing with fire. His forearm is hot and solid at Sousuke’s throat against the nearest wall inside Tachibana’s home. He chokes through a strained windpipe and keeps his hands up in surrender.

“Matsuoka,” he says eerily calm in contrast to the rest of him.

“I-didn’t-know,” Sousuke wheezes. He should care more about figuring out how the hell Makoto could know this before him. He doesn’t. The noise that squeaks past him when Makoto lays into his throat harder and presses his thigh nowhere _near_ clinical would be embarrassing if he didn’t notice a flicker of interest betray his assailant’s anger for it. What the fuck has he gotten himself into now?

He doesn’t have enough air to deny it again and hopes Makoto realizes that. He’s stuck somewhere between needing his windpipe back and enjoying a lightheaded grind against Makoto’s thigh.

“Shit,” Makoto sighs, and steps back. Sousuke coughs away the lingering scratch in his throat and shakes his head of his mild buzzed dizziness. “I’m sorry.”

“Wha?” he rasps.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was upset, I thought you kept it from me… things have been stressful.”

“And if I did?” Sousuke drills. “Why the fuck would I tell you if I knew sooner?”

To Makoto’s credit, he juts out his lower lip in thought and not offense. “Well if anyone I knew had eyes on you, I’d tell you.”

Sousuke laughs. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

He expects some softly delivered line like _I don’t lie_ hot off the heels of Makoto’s _I don’t kill_. But nothing about this guy seems to stay consistent.

“It’s useless to try to convince you of anything,” Makoto says. “So I won’t.”

Sousuke keeps his back to the wall. “Why am I here?”

“Why _are_ you here? You shouldn’t be around me with your partner on the case with you.”

As if Makoto has room to speak this way. Sousuke could roll his eyes. “Says the allegedly totally innocent man who won’t act on his desires or impulses if Nanase the _felon_ could find out.”

He wagers that last bit.

Makoto doesn’t take the bait. “Is it so hard to believe I’d want to protect you?”

“Yes,” Sousuke declares. “Unfathomably hard.”

“I can see that.”

Sousuke’s still _just_ drunk enough from his four-pint outing to exist in a limbo where he’s teeth-grindingly horny, acutely aware of it, and able to do nothing to keep it to himself. Not when his expectations going into the evening were so high, and are now _much_ higher than that as his head swims with phantom sensations of a handjob weeks old by now and his hips still angle forward in wait for the return of Makoto’s thigh. Everything about him is loose enough to fire on all sensory cylinders.

“You gonna do something about it or just fuckin’ stare at it?”

Makoto stares down at his issue and wrinkles his nose. It’s cute. Sousuke almost feels bad.

“What?” he continues. “We’re not teenagers after prom, we’re fucked up adults getting off on our stalemated power play. I’m not fucking stupid. Not _that_ fucking stupid, anyway.”

“Stalemated,” Makoto parrots thoughtfully. “Then I guess you can just wait a little longer until we’ve shared a drink, since nothing would change if we attempted civility for a few minutes, would it?”

He turns and leaves Sousuke perplexed and frustrated in the entryway. Sousuke’s further on guard when he hears the telltale clang of glassware from what he assumes is the kitchen. He, being an idiot, does not turn right the fuck back around and leave while he can. Instead he removes his shoes- his cleanest, blackest hi-tops this time- and coat and walks into the most boring house he’s ever been in.

He’s never seen a more obvious shell operation in his damn life. The walls are bare, the surfaces are stock, the furniture is straight out of late Grandma Tachibana’s estate sale and likely spent its first fifty some odd years of existence covered in thick protective plastic. This is a house ready to be ditched at a moment’s notice.

“Cozy,” he deadpans as he takes a seat on a barstool at the kitchen island.

Makoto shrugs. “I’m not a decorator.” He gestures to two short stubby glasses. “Since it’s your birthday, what can I get you?”

Good and fucked, he nearly says, but the single morsel of decorum he really does have somewhere speaks first. “Whatever’s dark and on the rocks.”

“You should drink less,” Makoto suggests, and drops to a squat at the island for a liquor cabinet underneath.

“You’re the reason I drink at all,” Sousuke counters.

When Makoto uprights with a full bottle of dark rum in a thick, ornate bottle, he’s grinning. “You’re the reason I can’t.”

Sousuke watches him grab the glasses and turn for his freezer. Two ice cubes each, and the warm shot of rum splashing over ice makes pleasing crackles and pops in the still of Makoto’s kitchen. It’s all so normal, bordering on companionable, and yet there is something tragically temporary about it, from the purpose of this house down to the conservatively poured drink meant to be emptied quickly.

“So I do put you on your toes.”

Makoto raises his glass just enough in acknowledgement and sips gingerly. “That’s why I like you. No one before you was ever this persistent or thorough. Keeps me... limber, sure.”

The rum is sweeter than Sousuke cares for, but he isn’t surprised it’s Makoto’s drink of choice. “You’re talkin’ a lot for a white collar man with nothing to hide.”

“Well, we are stuck with each other. I may as well open up and play to your sensitive side.”

“That is so kind of you to consider after getting me off first.”

Makoto laughs, as if; _oh, that._ “I panicked.”

Sousuke surprises himself with a booming laugh of his own, but it doesn’t echo or sustain. He shrouds its death with an excuse to sip, and opts to tip the entire glass up to finish it and drown his ever-gnawing guilt. What he did wasn’t without consequences, Makoto isn’t innocent, and making light of it is the same as denying he didn’t let Makoto walk away to turn around and fuck over more people to chase his own selfish thrills.

“We aren’t stuck with each other. One day, I’m going to do my job. One day, you’ll go away because of me and a judge, and I’ll celebrate. With rum, if you prefer.”

They hold each other’s stare a beat too long. Makoto’s glass lingers at his lips unmoving for the duration, and after some time he commits to finishing his drink as well. “One day,” he says over the _thock_ of his empty glass tapping the island top, “you’ll realize there are very few who care for balance like I do and even fewer standing between you and the sort of people who do kill cops.”

A surge of hot, angry blood rushes past his ears and all of that delicate peace they’d settled into fractures enough to reveal itself for the unstable element it really is. “I’m not afraid of Nanase, and I don’t need protection from someone who preys on desperate addicts.”

The island is narrow, narrow enough that Makoto can lean over it and kiss Sousuke so quickly, he can’t stop it with his alcohol-weighted reactions. He can’t stop kissing him back either, or taking a fistfull of Makoto’s shirt to hold him there when Makoto tries to ease back onto flat feet, because Sousuke hasn’t had nearly enough to drink yet tonight to be good and truly obliterated and Makoto’s the only thing within reach that tastes even a little like his solution.

Makoto tangles his fingers in Sousuke’s hair and gives a sharp tug that pulls his spine taut and kicks his one free arm bracing him on the island top out. His forearm collides with something solid, and glass shatters distantly on the tile below, though neither of them are concerned with it at the moment. Their kiss too fevered and barely restrained, too longing to care.

Sousuke is beginning to hope Rin finds out and kills him for this, since Makoto or Nanase clearly aren't going to.

They fail to part twice despite the effort, as Sousuke’s mind is too far flung in a hazy maze by Makoto’s kiss and a shot of rum flooding his bloodstream with everything just right to commit to stopping anymore. Soon Makoto yanks him away by his hair to get his distance back, teeth sunk into Sousuke’s bottom lip a breath longer before releasing him.

“You don’t know anything,” Makoto tells him quietly while he lingers close. Sousuke pushes for him again and Makoto tightens his grip until it stings to hold him still so he can finish speaking. “Nothing. About me, about Haru. You’re so smart, but you’re not one of us. You can’t know.”

Sousuke releases his shirt, finally allowing Makoto to stand flat again. He swallows down his shudder and licks the tingle from his lips, rolling his swollen bottom in to feel the raised heat Makoto’s teeth left behind. “Guys like you always think they got the upper hand,” he gets through his parched throat. “That you know some truth no one else does when really all you know is how to play dirty and trick yourself into thinking that’s enlightenment.”

Makoto doesn’t respond. He takes the remaining glass to his sink and sets it down quietly in the basin, then walks to a sliver of a closet for a broom and pan. Sousuke doesn’t offer to pick up the glass he broke, as Makoto’s dedicated movements leave no room for it. He must take hosting so very seriously.

When Makoto bends to lift the dustpan, his back stretches underneath his thin shirt in a way that leaves little to Sousuke’s imagination, for once. His mind is rather quiet overall; no reason to daydream when the subject’s right in front of him, or imagine what his hands are like anymore now that he’s felt him gently and felt him roughly.

And shit, maybe it’s the drunk, but Sousuke’s sure feeling poetic for a guy whose primary goal is a fuck so good he goes out and buys a diary just to write about it using hearts in place of dakuten.

He’s not supposed to be here, and the thrill of it turns everything he knows outside this house to snowy static. Every movement Makoto makes moves Sousuke’s head along with it. Fire pools between his hipbones, his fingers twitch along the chilled surface of the counter any time Makoto twists or reaches or flexes anything on himself, or any time he turns his gorgeous gaze anywhere near Sousuke’s vicinity.

And he’s all the way across the kitchen while Sousuke sits there and _feels_. That all-too-much shit he can’t stand defiantly punching through his drunk.

Sousuke’s patience for the evening draws thin. His legs hold him up with that precarious feeling only found through a buzz, where he knows he’s not going to topple over but he certainly thinks it might be a fun thing to do, and he crosses the space to Makoto who’s long since dumped the pieces of broken glass into the bin and remains upright and turned away finagling with something Sousuke can’t see. Because if Makoto’s suddenly shy now that they’re on a face to face basis, Sousuke can work with that. He’s moved much faster in shorter periods of times with lesser people.

Makoto startles. Sousuke’s thought about a gun barrel tracing his jaw and clacking along his teeth, he’s thought about Makoto biting his lip until it bruises, he’s thought about what sort of restraints would leave what sort of marks on his wrists.

He has not thought about a large wedge of broken glass getting first-name familiar with his carotid artery.

Air hisses through narrowly parted lips and the rest of him- literally the rest of him- goes stiff. He thinks Makoto might notice his error and let up, but instead Makoto’s gaze drops like a stone in water as if Sousuke’s returning inconvenient erection actually caught his periphery. He remembers he’s in jeans so that’s not it, but predator-prey relationships are often so much more past superficial observations. If only he knew anymore which role was his.

“Stressful, huh?” he gets out carefully putting two and two together from Makoto’s informal door greeting to his kneejerk defense now.

Makoto doesn’t move. “Very.”

Sousuke just barely turns his chin up and bent to stretch his neck along the edge of the glass. He wants to feel it, his heart beat quickens until it flutters when the edge bites him back. His exhale shakes beneath Makoto’s palm when he pushes beneath Sousuke’s shirt and plants it firmly in the center of Sousuke’s chest.

“More,” Sousuke sort of asks, sort of demands. Makoto drags the shard a fraction of an inch. It stings as it knicks his skin, searingly so.

“You’re afraid,” Makoto mumbles. He presses his palm to Sousuke chest more firmly to demonstrate what he means, pushing back against his hammering heart.

“Turned on,” he corrects.

“Is there a difference to you?”

“I’m not sure anymore.”

Makoto lets the glass off his neck and takes a step closer as he tilts Sousuke’s chin up with it next. This kiss scares him more than the glass does, for all of its reservation and uncertainty. Makoto skims his hand to Sousuke’s crotch, and lingers his grip there but doesn’t commit to him.

“This is what you like to see when you think about me? Do you think I’m fucked up like- this?”

 _Like you_ , Sousuke thinks Makoto wants to say by his brief pause and doesn’t.

“No,” Sousuke reassures him. “But I sure as shit am, so fuck me.”

Makoto’s next step walks Sousuke back, until they’ve taken three and Sousuke knocks his lower back against the island. Their kiss then is aggressive, Sousuke would say violent. Devoid of anything he’s learned to think of as Makoto over the last few weeks, and more on course with what his fucked up mind filled in the blanks with.

This is the part where he is supposed to realize he likes the softer, realer Makoto more, that the small cut on his neck is inflamed and throbbing now and not sexy at all, and that Makoto forcing his chin this way and that to dominate him and kiss him more completely regardless of where his teeth land is unappealing to a man in uniform such as himself who daydreams in equal parts of being railed until the city builds a train station near his ass and locking that dick on a pedestal up and out of his reach for good.

And he almost admits it, and would’ve if Makoto didn’t completely, so utterly, give into Sousuke’s demand and kiss him like this. The glass catches down his shirt, snagging a few times on the the path to his jeans button. Once it clacks to the metal, Makoto pulls off his kiss and sets his makeshift weapon behind Sousuke onto the island, which Sousuke begins to protest until Makoto takes him by his hips and shoves him towards the short hallway.

Sousuke turns and catches him, pushing him to his hallway wall hard enough to make a rogue framed photograph over a foot away from them bounce. Makoto has to want this, not just do it to do it. He finds Makoto as hard as he is, a long, voracious groan rips from his reserved mouth removing any shadow of doubt in Sousuke’s mind when he grinds against him deliberately.

Makoto grabs his ass fully, like he did in public but now so much more with both hands intent on making him spread and pressing their bodies closer together. Sousuke feels Makoto’s broad chest and wavy stomach for the first time against his own, first soft and warm and fucking wonderful, then hardened with anticipation when Sousuke’s hips move away only enough to relieve pressure before rolling back in again.

God, those hands. Sousuke could come like this, all over his clothes _again_ because being this close to Makoto is his wildest year-long dream come true. There’s no dick in him yet and it could even be good enough on any other day; he can taste how downright pissy this position makes Makoto the sloppier their kissing gets, the more they grind through too many layers and the firmer Sousuke’s lips and tongue pin him there.

“Bedroom,” Makoto gasps, but Sousuke doesn’t think that was demanding enough for his tastes. He runs two knuckles up Makoto’s length in response, surprising him and making him throw his head back before palming him entirely and working him in earnest with what Sousuke can reach through fabric. “Oh, fuck, Sousuke- please.”

Sousuke slams the wall again using his hips to push Makoto back to it as he whimpers. “Say it again.”

“ _Sousuke-_ ”

It comes out as a whine, it chokes gravel down Sousuke’s throat and he coughs it back up as a lustful growl that cuts Makoto off. “ _Again_.”

He’s too tunnel visioned to immediately parse the vacant space forced between them, but quickly catches on Makoto shoved him back and to the other side of the hallway. His fingertips on Sousuke’s jaw dig so hard the pressure makes them unsteady when they drag his gaze forward, his eyes are dark, his hair is disheveled from the evening so far, he looks ready to rip out Sousuke’s trachea with his teeth. Rin looks at him like this sometimes, but it’s always more of a boner killer than an enhancer like it is right now. The real question is if it makes him harder because he believes in this moment Makoto would actually tear out his throat, or soft because Rin wouldn’t even at his pissiest. He still doesn’t know what’s really feeding his sexual beast here.

“ _Bedroom,”_ Makoto repeats lowly, and Sousuke does not figure at this point Makoto will want to repeat himself a third time.

What he hopes is his final destination for the night is pitch dark and just as sparsely decorated. There’s no mood to gain from fucking here versus a broom closet. But there is a bed, and there are supplies. He learns both these facts in succession because Makoto may as well have drop kicked him onto the mattress, and he beams Sousuke in the side of the head with something plastic and only barely utters _sorry_ for his fuckshit-luster aim.

“Light? Jesus. Can’t even see my own dick in here and it’s pretty hard to miss.”

Makoto snorts just as a pull string on a lamp clicks over and bathes the off-white room in soft yellow. He begins to strip without ceremony, and Sousuke follows suit. Good. He always secretly hated drawing out a strip tease when it’s the skin underneath everyone’s after. What’s the goddamned point of it.

Makoto perches on the side of the bed and folds his hands in his lap almost shyly, as if his lust got ahead of his self-awareness and the rest of him only just caught up. Drug running keeps a man in shape, go figure. Sousuke wants to drag his mouth down Makoto’s obliques until they bloom purple, he would nip at that chest and those thighs until the marks connected like an inappropriate connect-the-dots puzzle. Makoto’s bottom lip sheens with similar desire as he runs his tongue in perfect sync with the rake of his eyes down Sousuke’s torso.

“You really seem like you’d rather I topped tonight... so I want you to do the work,” Makoto requests all too politely for something obviously non-negotiable. “I like to watch.”

Sousuke isn’t self-conscious about his sex acts past a certain point, a point he passed long ago without so much as a passing wave with Makoto, and easily slips into a better position on his back angled up just right for a good, easy reach. “What gave me away?” he laughs. “Asking you to fuck me?”

The weaponized lubricant offends him further by how cold it is on his skin, but he’s good and fucking ready to get started anyway and reaches down to between his spread legs when some 8-bit chirpy tunechip bullshit cuts through their thick arousal and absolutely _shatters_ Makoto’s focus and every block of ambience Sousuke has fought tooth and nail to construct since he got here.

“Excuse me,” Makoto says politely, already slipping off the bed and walking to his discarded pants for his Jurassic-era flip phone. He answers it upright in all that naked glory, dedication to the conversation that hasn’t even played out yet so strong Sousuke suddenly feels like a nuisance for being there. “Haru, good to hear from you.”

Sousuke allows himself one full grind rotation of his teeth.

“Is that so? Do you know it for sure?”

He continues what he intended to start. He has faith in himself and his fingers working up his ass to be more worthy of attention than a work-related phone call.

“The Kirishimas aren’t that careless, Haru.”

Sousuke files that name away. Or re-files it. It pangs familiar, some other distant drug case he’s sure. He’s knowledgeable with his own fingers because he’s just that goddamn slutty, so stretching himself out is action second to trying to figure out the stress-mystery that’s had Makoto in knots tonight.

Makoto side-eyes him and looks back to the curtained window. “... Well I did have plans. I’m sure it can wait- no, Haru, well… Listen for a minute, okay?”

His breath hitches involuntarily around a surge of pleasure once he gives in to his hand and maneuvers his fingers _up_. He’s too good at this by now, can’t help but make it feel oh so good. His free hand works his cock back to stiff while he’s knuckle-deep and Makoto prattles the fuck on about the Kirishima thorns in his sides, but his side-eye lingers longer and longer each time he dares check in on Sousuke’s progress before he tears it away again.

“They’re not going anywhere. They’re complacent. I will deal with Natsuya tomorrow, he’s very pleasant. You stay out of trouble with the other one… yes, Haru. I mean it. At least until I can speak with Natsuya.”

“Makoto,” Sousuke calls impatiently, earning a frown.

“Of course I’m with him, I told you I would be… he’s very-” Makoto sighs when he’s cut off. Sousuke’s surprised Nanase apparently knows about him, about them, whatever. Makoto’s _you know nothing_ feels apt. “I don’t want to deal with Kirishima noise tonight. I will tomorrow-” He frowns deeper, irritation ticking at the corners of his mouth when he’s interrupted again. “ _Haru_. I promise I understand what you’re saying. Please let me get laid just one time anyway.”

Sousuke chuckles, can’t help it. Makoto’s cute again, his drop in tone to something sort of childish to plead his thin entertainment versus business case more endearing than it should be. Makoto glares at him and tilts his head with what can’t be anything other than an idea as Nanase keeps speaking on the other line. Makoto steps back to the bed, affirming _mmhmms_ into the receiver and also curiously in approval of what he sees, in Sousuke’s opinion. He crawls up the mattress and grabs Sousuke’s _very_ busy wrist, gently pulling it away from between his legs and out of the way of Makoto’s trajectory.

When they’re face to face, Makoto takes over for Sousuke, teasing him loosely at his rim with circles and parting his lips alongside Sousuke’s gasp. “That’s very nice, Haru.”

“Fuck,” Sousuke mutters, angry about the warm blush clouding over his cheeks in unwanted sympathy for an unaware third participant. Makoto presses in and scissors out, and Sousuke’s next _fuuuuck_ is unfettered debauchery.

“Can I ask you something unrelated?” Sousuke can hear the suffered sigh on the other end. He allows himself to sink back into the pillows while Makoto plays with him, a self-satisfied smile tucked on his lips like he just came up with the world’s greatest solution to his business-pleasure mingling. True to his word he left the stretching work to Sousuke, and seems to merely revel in the novelty of touching him and stroking him deep as he chats up his buddy-old-friend-old-pal about fucking nothing. “Do you think that fear and sexual arousal are linked?”

Sousuke hears a distinct _what the fuck_ but nothing beyond it when Makoto shifts his focus to slink back down Sousuke’s body and lick up the side of his cock. He grips the sheet to keep himself steady and shifts his grind from down onto Makoto's hand to up for more of his mouth. Makoto pulls away to speak. “I’m seriously asking, Sousuke seems to feel this way. I’d never thought about it.”

Makoto has certainly thought about eating dick, because he’s incredibly good at it. Sousuke stutter-shouts as Makoto’s lips enclose around the head firmly, and glide down the shaft without a skip. He hums in response to something Nanase says, forcing Sousuke to dig his heels into the bed so he doesn’t push Makoto’s head down for more. His bob is a graceful laze, his rhythm is impeccably set to an unfaltering _largo_ pace. Sousuke exhales rich moans on each beat, one after the other, hoping Nanase hears it and hangs the fuck up.

He pops off quietly and refocuses his efforts to his fingers. Sousuke briefly loses his voice to the torturous, circular massage that doesn’t let up until he speaks again. “Did you really? Hm. I guess I should thank you.”

“Give me the fucking phone,” Sousuke wheezes.

Makoto nods. “Would you like to speak to Officer Yamazaki?”

Fucking asshole, through and through.

“Here,” Makoto says, handing it over, and going right back to work with his mouth. Sousuke gets out a _hrrnnnnnnng_ by way of greeting and follows it up with a more commanding “hang up the phone, Nanase.”

“Finally. Help us with the Kirishimas and I will let you get back to poisoning Makoto.”

“The fu- _uhhnnn-_ ck?” He gives in and grabs Makoto’s hair. Makoto’s nose pressed flat against his lower abdomen is awe-inspiring. “Oh _shit Makoto-_ ”

“Don’t say a _word_ about it to Makoto or I’ll bend my honor code, Yamazaki.”

“This blowjob is so much better than whatever the hell you’re talking about,” Sousuke breathes. “Hang up godshit fuck you should get in on this deep throat club.”

“Kirishimas, Yamazaki.”

_“Okay.”_

“And of course I have, are you stupid?”

Sousuke takes that as an end to the conversation and flings the phone away without snapping it shut. “Get off my cock right now and fuck me.”

“One thing first,” Makoto says with his lips still at the head. He catches a bead of precum on his tongue and takes his cock down to the base and back up one more time to deal with it. Sousuke’s never been more turned on and ready to walk out at the same time. “Haru says they’re linked.”

“Whatever!”

“I’m not convinced.” Makoto releases him, stops teasing and licking, withdraws his hand and wipes it of lube into the sheet. He angles over the side of the bed and reaches underneath it, returning to center with a black case. “I tried to get rid of this but Haru snuck it back in for my protection. I don’t really care to do this to be honest, but I am curious and I do want you to feel good…” He sighs. “Apparently it’s a _thing_. I know a lot about sex but not this. I do like you, though. So we can try it.”

Sousuke’s breath dies in his chest. Is it hotter or totally unsexy that Makoto plans to ignorantly fulfill Sousuke’s fantasies? Is it just as good if he’s only doing this part for Sousuke even if he’s into the rest of it?

Stupid fucking questions considering his ass is prepped and his cock is out and slick with spit already. Yeah, it is just as good. Fuck it. Who else is gonna do it for him? Now he owes Nanase gratitude. What a night.

The sleek black firearm in Makoto’s hand doesn’t look like it should be there (it’s a G19, he was close by his guess). Guns don’t suit him. It darkens him. It makes all of his honest kindness have a sort of tacky, uncomfortable stick along Sousuke’s skin, though Sousuke knows better. Makoto is flabbergastingly _earnest_. No wonder he doesn’t like guns if it could make him look two-faced.

Yet Makoto checks the chamber and ensures there’s no magazine in the well with a quick, practiced ease at the same time. He doesn’t use them but he knows his way around one. He clicks the safety over to off and pulls the trigger with the muzzle pointed away from them both to a satisfyingly empty _ketchuck._ Cool, Sousuke likely won’t be brained tonight. Not by a surprise bullet anyway.

Makoto sets the case on the floor and turns the gun over in his hand, getting a feel for the weight, then trails the muzzle up Sousuke’s calf. There’s a shift bordering on professional in his demeanor. The metal dancing up his leg forces an unfamiliar chill up Sousuke’s spine along with it. He shivers and forces himself to stay still.

“... Interesting.”

“Makoto,” Sousuke urges on. His tongue thickens and the name tumbles short and stunted from him, just enough of a change to make Makoto take interest. Once over the top of Sousuke’s knee, Makoto starts his path down the soft and sensitive inner thigh. He stops just before the end of it. Sousuke hasn’t breathed.

“I haven’t done anything,” Makoto says from somewhere far away. “What am I supposed to do?”

He stares down at the barrel resting gingerly at the top of his inner thigh. “For starters, don’t ask me for instruction when you’re the man with the gun.”

“Well I need to know if I… you know. Fuck you with it, at least.”

“N-no,” Sousuke stammers as he clears his throat nervously in the face of- _gasp-_ a _limit_. “Not uh, not this time. I mean maybe later, but if you still gotta ask, you’re not allowed to fuck me with it. Jeez.”

Makoto hums curiously. “Do you like the weapon itself… or…”

“You,” Sousuke answers firmly. It catches Makoto’s breath. Sousuke looks away from his wide eyes. Too much hope and awe within that should never be directed at him, not in their temporary situation.

“Then I’ll use it my way, if you don’t mind.”

How could he?

Makoto ambles back up over him, catching him in a soft yet thorough kiss. Sousuke quickly forgets about everything else going on that isn’t this kiss. Nips to his lips time along with upwards strokes on his cock, Makoto’s other hand returns to teasing him as he was before. The difference now is the heavy head of Makoto’s cock sliding along his leg as Makoto works his mouth with the utmost care. These changes in tempo give Sousuke whiplash in the best way.

Sousuke’s moans are acknowledged with a brief squeeze on his cock, his jerking hips get him scolding bites quickly soothed over by tongue. He’s never been kissed dizzy like this, or for so long. When Rin says he can make out with someone for hours, maybe this is the sort of eternity-laced kiss he refers to, not that unsatisfying teeth-gnashing equivalent any typical person gives him. He’s not sick of Makoto’s mouth like he thought he would end up after this much kissing, and isn’t certain he ever will be, as he’s just being taken care of that completely.

“Stalemate,” Makoto says quietly enough to drop the middle of the word out into nothing. Sousuke only groans enraptured under this touch, these diligent lips, his bold fingers alternating sinking deep and curling then withdrawing and stroking and _caressing_ and never allowing Sousuke to get too used to one or the other.

He’s fucking crafty too. He whispers _ready_ and Sousuke nods as if Makoto means to ask it, but it’s a statement. Sousuke’s too lost and gone in a subspace that doesn’t allow him to do anything other than comply to Makoto’s posing of his knees or notice when he says _ready_ he’s also pushing in, slick and fast, the steps inbetween conveniently kissed away from Sousuke’s shitty short term memory.

As he wails, Sousuke’s one-hundred percent certain he will never be this happy again.

 _“Makoto,”_ he sobs. “Fuck!” Because really: _fuck_. Makoto isn’t small by any definition but he slides in so smooth and sure Sousuke’s vision spots with overloaded pleasure. Immediately his hips snap down to take Makoto in as best he can until it’s all the way and still impatient for it, he ruts down further and digs his heels into Makoto’s back to line Makoto’s cock up exactly where he wants it.

“Wow,” is all Makoto has to say, and Sousuke’s whimpered _ha_ is just as pathetic as it sounds. “You like this.”

“Move,” Sousuke demands.

Makoto pushes up on his arms so one is on either side of Sousuke’s chest and stays put. “We should talk about stalemates. It’s been bothering me.”

Sousuke about screams, and thinks better of it. He’ll fuck himself on Makoto’s cock then, this teasing bullshit be damned. He grabs those focused eyes with his own, and doesn’t waver or hesitate to set his hips into a steady roll. Makoto stays still, aside from the lip he can’t keep himself from tucking hard between his teeth, because shit, if Sousuke were in his position he would’ve snapped this inconvenienced top act already. He isn’t, and so Sousuke will show him how to break a stalemate.

“Shove your mind games up your ass,” he breathes before a moan overtakes him. “I’ll come like this, you’ll come like this. We both know it.” Makoto watches him snake his hand down to jerk himself off, and doesn’t follow with his head once his eyes can’t drop any lower. Makoto can’t stay rock solid with Sousuke maneuvering his way to a finish like this. He can feel the shake in Makoto’s thighs and the short ticks of aborted thrusts. What a great game of gay chicken.

“You should stop,” Makoto says with no conviction.

“Make me.”

He knows, on a level of consciousness he does not currently have access to, that the G19 is unloaded. The safety might even be back on. He’s also forgotten about it, and the adrenaline flood of seeing it back in his face- specifically, hovering at his forehead, that sort of hover that’s so close it makes his skin itch- puts a metallic tang of fear on his tongue before the reality registers, the fantasy gripping harder first.

“You should stop,” Makoto repeats.

He already has, a whimper on his lips when his cock throbs along with a twist in his stomach. “You don’t kill cops,” Sousuke reminds him.

Makoto thrusts, almost all the way out and a slow drag back in. It’s Sousuke who’s immobilized now. His eyelashes flutter with every feeling his body can’t express. “I don’t see a badge on you.”

“I’ll listen,” Sousuke bargains. “Whatever you want.”

Makoto keeps the weapon precisely above his skin to pull that itch all the way down his face, until his lips tingle beneath it where it stops. His heavy exhales moisten the metal. “I don’t want you to talk.”

“I wo-”

It clacks to his teeth hard enough to carry a sound in the still bedroom. Sousuke breaks out in a sweat from it, his heart pounds hard enough to move his chest. It’s too close. His mind begs him to turn away, it plays out the sensation of what it believes point blank bullets would feel like shattering through his teeth and shredding his brain stem from this angle. Would he even feel it?

His imagination seems to think he would. His lips tremble in a desperate stretch to pull away from the cold and stoic object of his deepest fears. His body floods with adrenaline when he does nothing to protect himself as his mind is begging him to, resulting in involuntary shuddering waves every time he tries to really imagine what a bullet carving through his cranial cavity might feel like.

Makoto thrusts again. Sousuke’s mouth parts with a silent gasp, he inhales off the barrel. It tastes like dirt and grit, like it’s been fired many times.

“I don’t want you to talk.”

He shakes his head in agreement.

“We are not in a stalemate.”

A nod.

“We never were.”

Two nods. A muted choke when Makoto forces the muzzle deeper to lay along Sousuke’s tongue. He twists his hands in the sheets more and pleads with himself to keep his hips fucking flat, stop clenching around Makoto’s cock in anticipation, don’t come, _don’t come,_ don’t let this get him off and prove he’s just a fucking freak.

“There are only my rules when you don’t wear a badge.”

He speaks so clinically, and if Sousuke could even think about tearing his eyes off the firearm, he could maybe ascertain just how serious Makoto is being, and if these rules are suspended-fantasy bedroom rules or if these rules are ones to live his life by. If they are rules lurking in the grimy gutters outside of corner cafés, delivered in the form of four shot espressos.

Sousuke hasn’t nodded again, and the gag reflex he trained out of himself in college threatens to make a cameo appearance when he doesn’t expect Makoto to actually push the weapon any further into his mouth. It nearly knocks the back of his throat, causing it to spasm. Still, he doesn’t move, and Makoto thrusts again. Sousuke would wail if he weren’t busy tightening his throat to ease the persistent cough and forcing down the need to buck Makoto off of him. He finally nods and Makoto only pulls it back enough so he doesn’t actually gag, and just in time too, but keeps it pressed firmly on his tongue.

“You really do… like this,” Makoto says. It’s foreignly _sad_. It doesn't stop him from fucking Sousuke, in fact he picks up his pace. Sousuke hears his breaths shorten and weigh down with conflicted noises of pleasure and uncertainty. That desperate edge finally breaks through, where his thrusts are a bursting chase forward and not a lackadaisical swing on a warm summer day. “You’re shaking with it, Sousuke- you feel so good.”

He tries to speak; _god you too_ , and only licks metal. His lips tire out and form around the intrusion; it’s both defeating and fucking worth it for the darkened, lustful look Makoto gives him for doing it. He pulls Makoto in by his heels, invites him for more, dares him to shake with him. That lustful looks begs Sousuke to encourage it, and so he lifts his head and willfully, purposefully, returns the end of the gun to the back of his throat.

“Oh,” Makoto says quietly, rhythm slowing to excruciating, but not stopping. Conflict draws between his eyebrows, then overflows to pull at his mouth. He frowns, but not unpleasantly. In thought. Metal slides out, then back in, along Sousuke’s wet lips a number of times. Makoto’s flush creeps down his neck and over his chest, his thrusts resist until the top when he breaks on a hard snap that makes Sousuke’s back numb and the cock along his stomach throb with need. “I- Oh.”

Not quite the reaction Sousuke would’ve assumed, as his own once he accepted he found this sort of shit hot like Makoto just has was more of a concerned _fuck_ , but it works.

Makoto slides the handgun from Sousuke’s mouth entirely; Sousuke despises how much he misses it so soon.

He throws it far enough for it to hit the edge of the bed and bounce once before toppling over the side and onto the floor. Honestly, he took it further than Sousuke thought he would before freaking out in the face of a newfound taboo that gets him going. Besides, he’s not about to complain to get that mouth back on his own, or those wandering hands, or those powerful, fast thrusts turning the corner for a home run sprint.

“I don’t like it,” Makoto gasps to breathe, “I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, you fucking do,” Sousuke counters and laughs. “Never got a reaction like that before.”

He mutters a curse and his head weighs back down to kiss, kiss, kiss. Sousuke thinks it often when he’s lucky enough to find himself on his back under skilled hands, but holy hell does it warrant repetition now especially: he loves being fucked. He loves these rare nights where anything dares to work out for him at all. This, though? This is never a lay he thought possible, laughably out of reach, and now Makoto heaves above him, moaning quietly and making sure each thrust buries to the hilt, hits him unrelenting where it’s too much, and has Sousuke singing his pretty name and pleading him for more and fast, which he delivers without a fight.

Sousuke yells and sighs _fuck me_ , _fuck me, keep going_ which Makoto answers _yes, god yes, you feel so fucking good_ \- he looks incredible, he tastes like gunpowder and _victory-_

Is it a stalemate again if they come at the same time?

* * *

 

Sousuke’s an early riser only because he drinks too much. Back when he didn’t, waking up nearer to eleven was more par for the course, but steady inebriation doesn’t let him sleep in. He never figured out why that is.

Makoto’s turned away from him, breathing deeply and unmoving, and Sousuke figures he has enough time to get his things and go without disturbing him. He doesn’t need the morning after chit chat. He’d like a coffee and a shower, no words necessary to achieve either.

He gets his clothes back on without a hitch, and checks his phone for Rin’s belligerence. Sousuke didn’t check in again, he only now realizes.

Nothing from Rin. God willing, he ended up too drunk with Kisumi to notice Sousuke didn’t come home and passed out somewhere safe, and hasn’t given up on Sousuke and moved onto defeated silence. He needs Rin to care, his vulnerable mind supplies him then. He needs it.

But it’s not all silence, he does have one text from an unknown number.

_kirishimas, yamazaki._

_i can’t just arrest them for nothing,_ he answers, _give me something to work with,_ and receives a reply only thirty seconds later.

_we don’t do that._

Interesting outlook to have an honor code forbidding snitching yet still allowing for an arrest hit on a rival using the crooked cop in your side pocket.

 _if i can do it lawfully i will._ Because he’s not that bad, not yet, and a criminal always leaves a trail. Always. He just needs to know where to look, and he’s got the bomb-sniffing dog equivalent in Rin on his side now. He can work this, he can get Rin off Makoto’s ass, redirect him towards the Kirishimas...

_makoto thinks you’re smart, so i guess you’ll figure it out if you want to stick around._

But does he want to, does he really take another step deeper into this? Does he actually care about the alleged threat rival drug dealers pose to Makoto, or does this just keep one foot in Makoto’s bed? Why is he really considering it, planning, and thinking of tomorrow for once?

Makoto watches him silently with his head resting on a bent arm, which Sousuke only notices when he looks to the bed to weigh his moral quandary. They don’t speak, just as Sousuke wanted, and just as he finds upsetting now all the same. Makoto doesn’t smile _good morning_ or frown _that was a mistake_. He stares and waits for Sousuke to decide which to give him first.

Sousuke wants to crawl back into the bed and laugh it all off together, admit they are stuck with each other after all, and let himself fall into this warm, inviting pit of hell with no way out. This fucked up balance they’ve struck here is the most stable thing he’s had in all his fucked up adult life. He wants to do what’s necessary to keep it that way.

Which is exactly why he turns on his heel and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iskabee@tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://iskabee.tumblr.com)


End file.
